


once and again

by fraud



Category: Batman Beyond
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Casual Sex, F/M, Family Issues, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Permanent Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 12:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1982214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraud/pseuds/fraud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason rolls back into town, and pays Dick a visit. Even after 40 years, they can't just meet the topic head on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	once and again

This is the third time this week Dick’s walked into his room only to be thrown to the floor and fucked senseless. He’s not complaining, even if his traitorous lower back is starting to, but he doesn’t need his valuables to start going missing to get the point. Security needs to be upgraded, or he and the new Catwoman are going to have to have a serious conversation.

Across the room, his window is open to the night air, the lights of neo-Gotham glittering in the dark like jewels. Dick sighs, pulling his hand through his hair. He can see why she was tempted away.

He might as well grab some water and an asprin, maybe even turn off the lights he didn’t have a chance to turn off in his living room before getting a face full of-

Dick shakes the memory out of his head, kicking the sheet off and padding over to the window. He closes it and flips the latch, scanning what he can see of the skyline from behind plated glass. No explosions or fires, no wailing police sirens echoing through the night. Dick doesn’t know if he hopes Terry’s hard at work, or having a slow night.

Slow nights were the worst, when he was-

No. He’s not going there.

Stifling a yawn, Dick snags his underwear from the floor and pulls them on, wondering why he didn’t just invest in a voice activated light program. Probably the same reason he doesn’t cave and start his students on aerial VR when their parents inevitably ask why their kid fell off the bars. There’s something valuable to be learned from making mistakes and putting in the effort necessary to correct them.

A familiar prickle of unease races down Dick’s back and he’s scanning his apartment before he spots, and subsequently _recognizes,_ the figure lounging on his couch.

"Who finally drilled post-coital clothing into your system?" Jason laughs, socked feet propped up on the arm of Dick’s couch and his head pillowed in the relaxed cross of his own arms.

Dick’s hands find his hips, annoyed now that his nerves are singing with unnecessary adrenaline. "Too many people perpetually showing up in my apartment, _un_ invited.”

"Mmm, must be tough to be so popular." Jason hums, making a face that implies he imagines it’s anything but.

The pair of boots by the door suggest Jason’s been here for a while, and his previous comment paired with his smug look gives Dick a good idea of just how long. Embarrassing Dick Grayson over a sexual encounter has never really worked well for those who’ve tried, and it’s certainly not going to work any better coming from Jason.

Dick sighs, tension slowly draining from his shoulders as he asks, "What do you _want_ , Jason?”

Jason shrugs, "Can’t I just stop by to say hi to my favorite silver fox?”

"There are better ways than breaking into my apartment and spying on me.” Dick points out, and there’s a strange sense of déjà-vu to being mostly naked and exasperated in his living room. “But I guess none of those happened to occur to you.”

"Oh, you’ve gotten meaner in your old age." Jason smirks, uncrossing his legs and sitting upright. “I kinda like it.”

"Yeah, something about growing up does that to people." Dick grumbles, and there’s something dark there, like envy, if Jason didn’t know exactly how hard Dick’s fought to keep on his own straight and narrow.

Jason snaps the sentiment right back at him, elbows balanced on his knees. ”Guess I’ll never know, then.”

How Jason can possibly make Dick feel bad, after all this time, after all the backlash they’ve gotten- as a family, as heroes, as individuals- from his careless decisions, is almost incredible. But… it’s difficult to be mad when Jason looks like he’s hardly aged a day in the past forty years. It’s easy to believe he’s still the reckless, smart-mouthed kid brother Dick never really got the chance to know.

“Look-“ Dick sighs, rubbing at his one good eye. “It’s late. Do you need a place to stay?”

“Not especially.” Jason shrugs, a smirk pulling at his lips. “Besides, it looks like you’ve got your hands full on the night-guests front.”

“Jason.” Dick warns.

“No, seriously, brav _o_ Dickie. Way to stick it to middle age.” Jason laughs, perfectly sincere in his somewhat backhanded congratulations. “Hey, was I hearing things, or were there more than two people in there at one point?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Jason huffs, “Oh c’mon!”

Dick gives him a stern look, which is surprisingly effective with only one eye.

“Fine.” Jason holds his hands up, as if in surrender. “Fine, I’ll stay out of it.”

Dick doesn’t believe that for a second.

“You gonna tell me why you’re here?”

Leaning back into Dick’s sofa, Jason searches the ceiling, as if he’ll find the answer Dick wants up there. Dick can’t tell if he’s being purposefully irritating or just stalling for time. It’s been a few years, but this certainly isn’t the first time Jason’s shown up on Dick’s couch, and while Dick would have thought things might eventually change, there are literal decades of evidence that point to the contrary. He’d thought with Bruce out of the suit, maybe…

“Look, if this is about Bruce-“

"It’s not.” Jason cuts him off, aiming for nonchalant and landing somewhere more along the lines of hasty. “I just wanted to know where I could find the new kid."

“Terry?” Dick asks, his eyebrow winging up in a way that pulls at the exo-patch over his eye. He had no idea Terry and Jason were on personal terms.

Then again, how would he? Dick doesn’t talk to Bruce much anymore, not since-

His chest feels just slightly too small, a familiar fist closing around his heart, and Dick pushes past it, pretending he doesn’t taste guilt at the back of his mouth.

“Unless the old man is back to his orphan-napping ways.” Jason’s tone says all that needs to be said about that.

Dick shakes his head, just to keep everyone on the same page. “No, Terry’s still a solo act. Why are you looking for him?”

“Because I’m a trouble loving masochist?” Jason suggests, like they might be able to just leave it at that.

“Exactly.” Dick crosses his arms over his bare chest, caught between amusement and stubborn loyalty.

Jason laughs, laying his arms out along the back of Dick’s sofa, the full expanse of his chest laid open to show he has nothing to hide. “Don’t worry Dickie bird, I’m not here to start anything. Just passing through.”

Once again, Jason’s assurances are very hard to believe.

Dick’s eye narrows, skeptically. "You can break into my apartment, 38 levels up, but you can’t access a directory?"

"Well,” Jason smirks, looking Dick up and down with an appreciative glance. “Catching you off guard _was_ always good for a show.”

None of the bat brood aged particularly badly, even if Tim went grey far before his time (but really, who didn’t see that one coming?) and Barbara gave up the skin-tight suits far too soon, but Dick is still the hottest piece of ass in his age bracket. Hands down. Sure, his body has the marks and scars to memorialize his days past, but he’s still built like God’s gift to the human form. The wild, irresponsible part of Jason itches to get into a fight, just to see if Dick still moves the way he used to.

"If this is business, you know you should be talking to Bruce.” Dick points out, not in the least bit bothered by Jason’s appreciative eyeballing.

Jason’s mouth thins, annoyed, tapping his fingers on the back of Dick’s sofa. “Yeah, I know where the manor is, thanks.”

“Look, I’m just saying-“

"Fine.” Jason snatches his arms off the back of the sofa, pulling in on himself. “Keep your lips pressed firmly to Bruce’s asscheeks. I’ll look it up on my own."

Dick sighs, feeling far too old for this same old song and dance. He should probably ask Jason to stay, just until he can get in contact with Bruce, but Jason is already off his sofa, heading over to his shoes without another word and Dick wasn’t being facetious about Jason looking Terry up. He didn’t _need_ to stop by for what is, essentially, public information. Which means there is a reason, and sometimes, even though Dick knows better than to let what he wants color the actuality of things, it seems like that reason is because Jason misses them. Like he feels he has to invent reasons to come to Gotham, because he wouldn’t feel right otherwise.

Dick wonders where they went so wrong.

Jason stomps his foot into his boot, too aware of Dick’s eyes on him. He laces them up with sharp, militant actions, first the right and then the left. In an ideal world, he’d just take off. Make this all easier on everyone by just keeping his mouth shut.

In an ideal world, Dick isn’t growing old alone with a bullet lodged in his back.

"The brat sends his regards."

Dick visibly stiffens, even though he knows he shouldn’t. Jason’s likely just lashing out at Dick for being uncooperative. Fishing, albeit with a rusty hook in the dark; but he’s never been one for finesse when he knows there’s something there. Unfortunately for Jason, there is no torture, in this world or beyond, that anyone could subject Dick to that could get him to talk about Damian.

He is a living monument to his own reluctance, Bruce’s finest disciple in reticence.

Jason wonders if Dick recognizes how fucked up it all is.

“Look,” Jason starts, not sure what to do with his hands and immensely glad the light from the living room only faintly reaches the front door. It makes giving this advice feel a little less hypocritical. “I get that this is fucking hilarious coming from me, but you’ve gotta get over it at some point. Even if its only enough to live with, you gotta stop living _around_ it.”

Dick’s glare is venomous. "I must have missed the part where that was _ever,_ any of your business.”

"I know you- supposedly- gave up the hero gig, but let’s face it, you’re getting fucking old- you all are. One of these days-"

"Level 26, sector 1; he’s not going to be off patrol before 3, if you’re lucky." Dick’s tone makes it clear that he hopes Jason sits around all night. "And for the love of God, whatever you’re going there for, _don’t_ crawl in his brother’s window. Now get the hell out of my apartment.”

Jason wants to give into the pernicious need to push against Dick’s hurt, to test the bruise Dick will never let completely heal; the wound he lives with every day, lodged so dangerously close to his spine. It would feel almost like old times, if Jason had it in him to truly cherish those most tumultuous of times. But he’s not risking getting thrown out of a nearly 40 story building, not for Damain. Especially when he’s not sure what the brat even wanted him to _say_ in the first place.

There are so many issues between the two of them, Jason wonders if he and Bruce almost look normal.

"Thanks Dickie boy." Jason gives him a half-hearted salute and lets himself out.

**Author's Note:**

> this is set up for a Terry/Jason scene that's part of a larger story I'm likely never going to finish. I'm fifteen years late to the party and i don't even have any starbucks, innit just kick in the balls?


End file.
